Return the Favour
by theos
Summary: No good gift goes unpunished. S/G fic.


Return the Favour   
  
Nope, I still don't own any of the CSI folks.   
They belong wholeheartedly to CBS and A. Zuiker.  
I bow and borrow.   
  
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An actual story! With paragraphs! The Tahoe, unfortunately, only makes a guest appearance.  
  
A Sara/Grissom fic. No spoilers.   
  
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Sara Sidle, master of forensic science, mistress of arcane physics, and all-time expert on dead people, sat sulking in the breakroom of the Las Vegas crime lab. The sulking, she thought, was not so unusual. The fact that she had to sulk alone - on her birthday - now, that was a novelty.   
  
Sulk, sulk, sulk.   
  
She considered the earlier events of the day.   
  
All the investigators had been on an interesting case earlier; a jogger through the park had stumbled on a rather unusual killer's cache - entrails and various organs had dangled from the trees in the small grove, though no body and no signs of struggle were apparent.   
  
Sulk.   
  
The boys _lived_ for cases like these. Nothing like a grotesquerie to wake you up in the evening. Nick Stokes crouched next to a particularly full tree, grinning widely. Gil Grissom, supervisor extraordinaire, eyed him skeptically.   
  
"Nick, you're sure?"   
  
Nick straightened up. "Yeah - I got Catherine to run a sample back to Greg...they're definitely human."   
  
Grissom looked up and around. Sara surreptitiously watched the two men from a distance as she photographed the path leading into the grove; she doubted she'd get much, but she'd rather do it and get nothing than leave it undone and get a figurative butt-kicking from the rest of the team.   
  
Nick tracked Grissom's gaze around the grove, wondering what he was supposed to see. "Problem?"   
  
"It's just so wasteful."   
  
A puzzled look crossed Nick's face. "Ahh...come again?"   
  
"For a serial killer. It's wasteful."   
  
Nick looked skeptically at his supervisor. Sara tried hard not to laugh.   
  
"They're trophies, Gris...even Brass got that one right away."   
  
Grissom said nothing for a moment, looking off into the distance. Nick peered around his shoulder and shrugged. Grissom usually knew what he was doing, after all... "Speaking of 'presents', Nick-"   
  
Nick looked somewhat revolted. "Presents??"   
  
"Let me finish out a sentence? Speaking of 'presents'..."   
  
Grissom's sentence trailed off. He cast a glance at Sara out of the corner of his eye.   
  
"Nick, let me show you...the possible egress point, over here."   
  
"I thought the egress point was-"   
  
Grissom stepped on Nick's foot and subtly nodded his head towards Sara; Nick swung around and stared at her for a moment.   
  
"Oh! The egress point, yeah, ok..."   
  
Grissom sighed. Sara watched them walk off together and started to follow.   
  
"Sara!"   
  
She turned around and smiled at Warrick as he ran towards her with a black case in hand.   
  
"Why in such a hurry, War?"   
  
"Grissom - _pant_ - said he wanted this - _pant_ - right away..."   
  
Sara grabbed the case and peeked inside; Warrick's super-sniffer lay well-padded within the black shell.   
  
"What does he want the nose for?"   
  
Warrick shrugged.   
  
"He hasn't let us mortals in on it yet. I mean, it's Grissom, Sara - we'll probably find out after he comes out of the interrogation room after reducing the suspect to tears."   
  
"I don't think anyone who's done this-" Sara gestured around the grove, "is going to be reduced to tears by an interrogation."   
  
"Whatever. Where is Gris, anyway?"   
  
Grissom walked smoothly out of the bushes behind Warrick.   
  
"Goddamn- Grissom, wear a bell or something!"   
  
Grissom ignored this and turned to Sara, handing her an evidence bag full of dirt.   
  
"Take this back to the lab, get Greg to run it through the mass spectrometer."   
  
Sara gave the bag a look.   
  
"I can tell you what it is right now, Grissom."   
  
"Oh?"   
  
"Dirt. It's dirt! Why do I have to scut this back to the lab? I'm not even done photographing the trail in yet."   
  
Grissom considered that, his face grave.   
  
"You're right. Give the camera to Warrick to finish up, and then you can run back to the lab."   
  
Sara opened her mouth to tell Grissom exactly what she thought of the idea, but he was already turning away to ask Nick something. Warrick looked apprehensively at Sara.   
  
"Here," she snarled, and threw $5,000 worth of camera equipment at Warrick's chest. He caught it, surprised; she strode off to the Tahoe before she could get a lecture.   
  
And here she was. Sulk sulk sulk. She had returned to the lab and slammed the bag of dirt down on Greg's desk before stomping off and finally ending up in the breakroom. By herself. She was well aware of how ridiculous the stomping and throwing and slamming was; she wasn't three, she didn't need to have a temper tantrum to prove how valuable she was to Grisso-  
To the team. To the team, right? She didn't need to prove anything to Grissom - obviously, if he had brought her in here from San Francisco, he had confidence in her.  
Except that it didn't feel like confidence. It felt like she was the permanent temp in the office. And why did she need Grissom's approval, anyway? Sara grimaced. What was it that her old prof used to tell them? _"Don't ask questions if you don't want an answer._ I don't want an answer, Sara thought. As long as I don't have an answer, I can keep pretending I don't want one. She laughed, sardonically, at the train of thought that this was leading her into. Some investigator.   
  
She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. Maybe she could catch up on some sleep, as long as she had nothing better to do. She heard footsteps coming down the hall and jerked upright; Grissom might not want her doing real work, but he probably expected her to keep her eyes open. Suddenly, the lights in the wing dropped off. Sara bolted out of the chair, knocking it over -   
  
"What the hell?"   
  
Grissom, Nick, Warrick, Catherine, and Greg stood in the doorway, lit by the glow of candlelight. Nick and Warrick held a huge slab of cake with - god, there must be fifty candles - HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARA scrawled over it in hot pink icing. Greg held a camera high over the group's head.   
  
"Say cheese!"   
  
Sara blinked as the flash left her momentarily blind.   
  
"This is - wha - how -"   
  
Grissom grinned - grinned! - at her like a little kid. Catherine shouldered her way into the room.   
  
"Finally gotcha, Sidle."   
  
Sara sat down abruptly on a chair - not the one she had knocked over - and stared at the team, her mouth open.   
  
Nick pulled up a chair next to her. "Close your mouth, Sara. You'll catch flies."   
  
Grissom picked up the chair from the floor and set it in front of her, settling into it. "And whereas I would usually love the opportunity to study an example of that genus, it's time for presents."   
  
Sara finally smiled.   
  
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After the brief party, Sara and Grissom both stayed behind to clean up the remnants of cake and wrapping paper. Sara couldn't take the smile off her face; for the first time in months, she really felt like she belonged to the unit. She was part of The Team, now.  
Grissom swept the last cake crumbs into the dustpan. He stood up, dumped them in the garbage, and put a hand on Sara's shoulder, gently tugging her around. She gave him a quizzical look.   
  
"Sara, you don't have to help me clean, you know. The whole point of the party was to get you to relax; go home and use some of that bath crap that Greg gave you."   
  
"I don't mind. Really, Grissom. It's the least I can do, since you gave me the night off tomorrow."   
  
"Did I do that?"   
  
"Yeah! My birthday gift, remember?"   
  
Grissom ducked his head and smiled shyly.   
  
"Actually - I had another gift for you."   
  
Sara's eyebrows went up.   
  
"Another gift? Grissom, you're getting soft on me."   
  
He gave her a miniature version of his severe look before turning to fumble through the fridge.   
  
"I put it in here, for safekeeping..."   
  
"Grissom, if it's bugs, I don't want it."   
  
"Mmmmm...ah, here we are."   
  
He turned around with that same shy smile on his face, and held out a red-wrapped box to her. She gave him a mock-suspicious look before picking open the meticulously worked wrapping; she opened the box warily and looked, with great surprise, at the neatly labeled moon rock inside. She gasped. This was a childhood fantasy - how'd Grissom get ahold of it? How did he _know_?   
  
She stammered out her thanks, staring at Grissom. Grissom grinned his little kid's grin at her again.   
  
"Speechless twice in an hour? I think we've reached a record here, Miss Sidle."   
  
Sara launched herself at Grissom and hugged him fiercely. She pulled away and started examining the rock from every angle before he could get over his surprise long enough to push her away.   
  
"I should run a spectrograph on this. This is so cool!"   
  
Grissom watched her, his head cocked to one side.   
  
"I'm glad you like it. I went to a lot of trouble to find you out, Miss Sidle."   
  
Sara looked up at Grissom, an idea forming in her head.   
  
"Then I should return the favour, Grissom."   
  
Quickly, before he could protest, Sara kissed him lightly on the mouth and pulled back to gauge his expression; Grissom looked at her in absolute shock, downshifting slowly to absolute Grissomian blankness.   
  
Sara felt her cheeks burn, and moved to leave - _before I can make any more of a mess_.   
  
"Where are you going?"   
  
She half-turned.   
  
"I don't think that makes us quite even, Miss Sidle."   
  
She turned completely around and saw the "I dare you" look on Grissom's face.   
  
She grinned. _Happy birthday, indeed!_


End file.
